I don’t think you’ll ever get that the way you treated me was pretty fucked up. Sure you can pass off things as being one way or another because you’re incredibly blunt, but my god, I should’ve seen the freight train you brought on coming miles away. I should’ve just given up on us being friends on the first day I ran into you again, who cares if we were once friends in preschool years and years ago. People change. It’s been 2 years since we finally stopped being friends, but somehow everything you ever did to me still follows, even well into college where I thought I could get away. Did you know I was the only person to confide in you back when I was self harming? I thought I could trust you because you knew what it was like to be in that hole. Instead you treat me like I’m fucked up because “I’m not doing it right” or “there’s self harming and then there’s straight up mental illness” No shit Sherlock. I’m mentally fucked and back then I reached out to you for help. You treated depression like a tool to lure in the prey of attention, you treated your scars like decorative tattoos. You treated my scars like festering wounds. You were one of the only people to ever openly tell me how disgusting you thought I looked. Growing up with chronic antibiotic resistant bacteria from age 2 on, you get used to people having something to say about the infections across your body. I just didn’t think someone could comment on it everyday. “Your arms look terrible today”, “you know, you really look better with makeup on”, “Your face doesn’t look all that bad today—wait, nvm. It’s okay, I understand one time I had this really bad pimple...”. You treated my mother and sister like absolute shit, always commenting on the way they looked and did things, far too bluntly for how opening and loving our household was to you when you needed it. Whenever you needed someone there, I helped take care of you and listen, but you never returned the favor. When you got your wisdom teeth out, I took care of you for the first few days because your mother wouldn’t. When you needed a place to stay because your dad and you were fighting, I let you stay over for as long as you needed. When you needed someone to plan your budget to save up for your first apartment, I was there. Need help on homework in school? No problem. Need someone to rant to about your chronic health issues? Confide in me, I’ve got a whole slew of them that I can relate with you on—of course you’ll try and convince me I don’t understand what it’s like when that’s all my life has been taken over by. You’re probably off living life, fucking whatever number boyfriend you’re on now—sorry I can’t relate to having even one, though I tried...I know it pissed you off to be friends with someone who’s pathetic enough to never even had someone like them. The thing that still haunts me to this day though, is the last day I saw you. I was going through a rough time, contemplating suicide at the time. It should be noted that you never stopped me in my first attempt though I told you for months that I was planning it, thanks a lot, whatever it’s not your business. Anyway, things were rough that day. It was about the time my immune system was an absolute mess and was missing months of school at a time. You needed some place to stay for a night, so I let you stay over—though you stayed the whole weekend. I needed the company. The whole time you bashed absolutely every part of me, crossed every line. From my love life to my health conditions to my own safe space. You took one look at my skin that day, ran to the bathroom, puked, and came back to tell me that my “skin looked so bad it made you throw up”. Thanks for that, you could’ve at least not told me. You spent that whole afternoon lecturing me on how pathetic it was that you were my only friend and that I had been single all my life. You bashed my mental health issues because even though they were bad they “aren’t as bad as” yours and I “don’t know what it’s really like to be depressed”. Maybe the reason I stayed depressed for so long was because the only person outside my therapist and psychiatrist who knew was telling me it wasn’t valid. Then that evening I was being horribly bullied online, it was the one place I had to try to socialize with people now that I was stuck at home in bed 24/7. You thought nothing of it and when I needed your help most, you left me by myself to cry. Telling me to suck it up as you went upstairs to leave me in my state of upset. I sat there alone for 45 minutes or so before I got the bright idea to go up to my own room and see what had become of you. I walk in and I see you on FaceTime with your boyfriend masturbating in my bed. Now I normally believe masturbation to be healthy and all that, but NOT IN MY FUCKING BED! I had just been downstairs bawling my eyes out because of what people had to say about how I looked (you included, I was still upset about what you had done that day) and I come upstairs to this—door WIDE open might I add. I immediately closed myself into the bathroom and I’ll never forget the words you said “Uh hey, I’m sorry you, um had to see what I was doing—you did know what I was doing right? Look, uh...I kinda wanted to finish so...” and then you went back at it, STILL IN MY BED! I left the bathroom, grabbed my headphones, and went walking outside for 7 hours. I came home late in the night and couldn’t bring myself to walk upstairs or even fall asleep that night (not just because of what you did). Early the next morning I asked my mother to tell you I was feeling very sick today and that you needed to go home. On your way out you did not apologize or say thank you, the last words you ever said to me in person were, “you know, that was the only time I ever orgasmed”. And that’s it. You know the rest of everything that happened, I missed the next 5 months of school and was faced with either repeating a year or testing out. I tested out and went to college a year and a half early. I had to stay living at home because of my health issues, but at least I was on to something that would be forwarding my life. Then my house burned down and well, the only thing I found myself thinking after I go over all that devastation was “I’m glad my room is gone so I’ll never have that memory of her”. It’s a fucked up way to think, but in the span of that one year I went from lonely and sick in high school to homeless and still lonely and sick in college. It’s 2 and a half years since that evening you came over. All this doesn’t even begin to get into all further things you did to me. You were my first friend and all you did with that was fuck me over. The reason I write this today is because I still have nightmares every night about the fire, but every once and a while you’re in there too. I open up a door to the one room that’s not burning and there you are pleasuring yourself over my devastation. I wish I could’ve heard from you at least after all that. 1/4 of our town burnt down and the only time you had anything to say to me was over text last summer when I finally had the guts to come out as bisexual, “bisexuality isn’t really but...whatever”. Thanks for that. It’s my hope in writing this that I can stop having nightmares or thinking about your comments every time I look in the mirror. I don’t hate you. I just wish you wouldn’t have hated the real me so much...